(CN) — Authorities in Kansas are moving to release the items seized Friday from the controversial raid of a rural Kansas weekly newspaper, with the county attorney deciding there was not enough evidence to justify the searches.
“I have come to the conclusion that insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized,” Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey in a statement published Wednesday on the website of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
“As a result, I have submitted a proposed order asking the court to release the evidence seized. I have asked local law enforcement to return the material seized to the owners of the property," Ensey said.
It marked the latest development in what became a national story after local law enforcement raided the offices of the Marion County Record in Marion on Friday and searched the home of its owner and publisher.
The incident blew up over the weekend, thrusting the paper and local authorities into a freedom-of-the-press uproar, and the controversy steamed into the week following death on Saturday of Joan Meyer, 98, the mother of publisher Eric Meyer, who was still involved in the publication of the family newspaper. Eric Meyer has cited stress from the raids as a cause.
“She said over and over again, ‘Where are all the good people to put a stop to this?’” Eric Meyer told The New York Times for his mother’s story obituary published Tuesday. The Times reported that authorities had even taken Joan Meyer's Alexa smart speaker from her home.
Eric Meyer had questioned if the paper could publish as normal Wednesday, but it did, the Kansas Reflector reported. The Record's front page said, in 200-point type “SEIZED,” and in slightly smaller type, “but not silenced.”
“This just couldn’t stand,” Meyer said, according to the Reflector. “If it did, it would be the end of people ever being able to send anything anonymously to a newspaper. It would be the end of news organizations ever pursuing any sort of controversial story.”
The searches appear to have been prompted by a complaint from local restaurant owner Kari Newell, who accused the newspaper of invading her privacy by obtaining copies of her driving record, which included a 2008 drunken driving conviction.
Police said they had probable cause to believe there were violations of Kansas law, including identity theft, according to a search warrant signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, The Associated Press reported.
Eric Meyer has said the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of local politics and the background of Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody’s record drove the raids.
In his statement, Ensey said he is asking for the affidavits written to support the search warrant to be released. They were not yet available late Wednesday afternoon on the Kansas District Court Public Access Portal.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is now in charge of the case. It said the investigation remains ongoing but without the seized materials.
The warranted search alarmed legal scholars and press freedom advocates. Many experts who spoke to Courthouse News said the raid and search could violate the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which prohibits authorities from using search warrants to obtain journalists’ work products without probable cause and requires authorities to instead use a subpoena, which news organizations can then challenge.
Lyrissa Lidsky, a professor of media law at the University of Florida, said Wednesday's developments are a sign authorities realize they have made a major error.
"I think that’s a sign they realized they were not acting lawfully, basically, and they are trying now not to compound on the error," she said. "It just confirms the sense that people had that this could be an egregious abuse of power."
Lidsky said she hoped their would be an investigation into the search's motives. The press isn't always popular, she said, sometimes for good reason. But it plays a critical role in holding government to account.
“I hope people are going to be held to account if this is, as it seems possible, an attempt to punish journalists for their exercise of their First Amendment rights," she said.
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